Bug 43525

[Reproducible] with "LibreOffice 3.4.4  - WIN7 Home Premium (64bit) German UI [Build ID: OOO340m1 (Build:402)]", 
also with LibO 3.3.3 Portable and OOo 3.1.1. So inherited from OOo!


Steps to reproduce:
0. Open Calc
1. Type "Wikipedia" into a cell, do not press <enter>
2. <contro+a> to select all word "Wikipedia"
3. Click Hyperlink icon in Toolbar
   Hyperlink dialog opens
4. Select "Internet", insert a link like "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page"
   into 'Target' pane, Text pane already contains string "Wikipecia"
5. Use "Form" selector to select 'Button', <Apply>, <Close>
   Now you see a button
6. If necessary, activate Form Controls edit mode
7. Click Button (control points appear)
8. click Hyperlink Icon
   Hyperlink dialog opens
9. Change Form selector from 'Button' to 'Text', <Apply>, <Close>
   Expected: Button disappears, Text with link remains (so it is in WRITER)
   Actual: Button remains.

Also a problem if you first create a text hyperlink and then modify to 'Button' (what will work) and then start with step 6, it's impossible to modify back to Text hyperlink

Also DRAW and Impress are affected. There it's also impossible to modify a text to a button using Hyperlink dialog, it's only possible to create a button directly.

In Calc you will see that when you modify a text link to a button link, the old text link remains and an additional button covering the text link will be created.

Of course we should have consistent behavior in all LibO applications. But:
- In DRAW / Presentation it is impossible to have a Button within a Text field,
- In Calc I can not imagine a definition how to replace a single word link 
  within a several words text in a Cell by a button.

So may be considering all aspects the current behavior is the optimum we can reach?

focusing on writer - and there changing hyperlink type back and forth between text and button is possible in 3.5.0beta2, thus it is a classical worksforme.

if you entered the hyperlink-button, click on it (this might require the mentioned form controls and edit mode, so this is the only thing that is non-intuitive), if it is selected (i.e. you got the green markers around it), go to Insert|Hyperlink, switch from Button to Text and click apply → hyperlink is now a text-link.

(and honestly for the other cases: I'd rather insert the hyperlink again instead of fiddling around with it too much). As you mentioned the different layout possinbilities/where it is possible to anchor links is rather different.

So I only consider this issue relevant for Writer, and there it is possible to switch back and forth (with the limitation of having to activate edit mode, but this is a fundamental thing when dealing with form-controls such as buttons)